Posts Tagged ‘videos’

I’ve been coming down to Los Angeles every couple of weeks to develop film and one of my favorite things about visiting LA is getting to listen to fm 107.1 Super Estrella. It’s this Spanish station that plays rock and [occasionally campy] pop. I’ve discovered a lot of great new songs listening to them. I nearly drove off the freeway the other night, though, when I heard a cumbia villera song come on. It was followed by a Soda Stereo song and I figured, it being after midnight, they must have some special Argentine hour relagated to the madrugada, but no, I heard the song again today. Here it is, it’s rather catchy:

The song is called “Una Calle Nos Separa” and was originally by Leo Dan, an Argentine singer popular in the 1970s. This version is by the group Nestor en Bloque.

I love that they’re playing cumbia villera in the United States. It’s absolutely the most disrespected musical genre in Argentina, coming as it does from the slums of Buenos Aires. Of course, Tango also originated in the slums and was rejected by Argentine society until it became popular in Paris [so the story goes].

Daniel Merle is the photo editor for La Nacion’s Sunday magazine and he also writes the best [the only?] blog on photography in Argentina. I enjoy reading his blog [in Spanish] because he writes in a very conversational style that I find easy to read. Of course, I also enjoy what he writes about. Recently he’s been producing these wonderful short videos of well-known photographers here in Argentina talking about what cameras they use and why. I realize that the camera does not make the photographer, still, I’m a complete camera porn fetishist and total voyeur when it comes to watching other photographers at work, so these videos are a joy to watch [in Spanish]: